Maialino: Excellent Italian with the Danny Meyer Touch

If only all restaurateurs had the magic touch of Danny Meyer. From New York classics like Union Square Café, to bastions of four star dining like Eleven Madison Square Park, everything he touches justifiably turns to gold. His latest restaurant, Maialino, which opened at the beginning of November in the space vacated by Wakiya at the Gramercy Park Hotel, is no exception.

Maialino has a design to match the Roman-trattoria cuisine that it serves. It may seem absurd to hire David Rockwell to design a trattoria—I’m sure that no trattorias in Italy have had so much money and thought put into their design—but Maialino’s layout is one of its many charms. The seating area by the bar has a yellow-tiled floor that is inspired by the pantheon. The main dining room has beautiful oak floors and wood-lined walls. A blue-checkered tablecloths tops each table. Each of these touches give the restaurant warmth and comfort that is inherent to all Danny Meyer restaurants and are an ironic twist for a restaurant that is housed in an Ian Schrager hotel where the Rose Bar next door has a strict door policy and serves $19 cocktails.

The prices at Maialino are wallet-friendly given the quality of food that Chef Nick Anderer, formerly of Gramercy Tavern and Babbo, is serving, with antipasti under $15, pastas under $20, and most entrees under $30. I appreciate that Danny Meyer set prices at these levels when he would have almost surely still filled tables with slightly higher prices.

The menu is full of modernized Italian favorites from spaghetti carbonara to the restaurant’s namesake dish, Maialino al Forno, a roast suckling pig for two. In classic Meyer form, I have heard that the restaurant provides diners with bread to make sandwiches at home out of any uneaten pork. Wanting to fill up on more than just pig, the Significant Eater and I decided not to order the roast pig, but we did get a taste of the pork-centric menu, selecting a starter of a rich pork terrine which was terrific when spread on Maialino’s bread, which is baked in house.

As a pasta, we chose the raviolo al uovo, a very large raviolo filled with creamy egg yolk, ricotta, and potato. When you cut into the pasta, the egg yolk runs across the plate. This was a dish I enjoyed eating in the restaurant and would love to make at home one day.

For our entrees, we ordered the a sea bass set atop greens and preserved lemon and a braised lamb shoulder served with crispy potatoes. The fish, although perfectly cooked, was the least interesting dish of all that we ordered at Maialino, but served as a nice counterpoint to the very heavy dishes we ordered for the rest of the meal. The lamb more than made up for the weak-flavored fish, with the Significant Eater and I fighting each other for the last little morsels of potatoes that had absorbed the wonderful braising liquid.

To complete our meal, we shared Maialino’s tartufo, which was nice take on the classic Italian dessert. Unlike the right-out-of-the-freezer tartufos served at so many Italian restaurants, Maialino’s is freshly made with thick chocolate shavings surrounding creamy chocolate gelato and a brandied cherry. Complements of our charming but slightly nervous waiter, perhaps as compensation for the tiny drop of wine that he spilled on our table (and promptly cleaned), we also were served a slice of olive oil cake. Not that I needed a second dessert, but I happily ate the lemony cake.

Maialino has a very nice wine list, with many choices under $40. The sommelier steered us to a Aglianico, which was robust enough to stand up to the heavy dishes we ate.

Several days after our meal at Maialino, I received a letter in the mail signed by Maialino’s general manager thanking me for my patronage and inviting me to return. It is the little touches that I love about Danny Meyer restaurants, where the staff goes beyond expectations to make diners feel welcome and appreciated. I needed no invitation to return to Maialino, for I surely will.

Maialino
2 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10010

Review: 'inoteca, vino, cucina e liquori bar

As a twenty-something living in Manhattan for over three years, I was probably just about the only person in my demographic who had never been to 'inoteca.  It was not for lack of interest; the never-ending crowds at the restaurant's Rivington Street outpost had me convinced that 'inoteca's wine list and Italian small plates menu were not to be missed.  However, despite it being on my restaurant radar for years, I never made it to 'inoteca, as making the long trek to the Lower East Side just to grab a panino and a Sangiovese never seemed worth it to me (but going to Chinatown for a banh mi and some water, on the other hand...).  So when the owners of 'inoteca converted their short-lived high-end Italian restaurant in Gramercy, Bar Milano, to the much-better-suited-for-the-times 'inoteca, I finally had my reason to give 'inoteca a try.  

The evening that my significant eater and I went to 'inoteca was particularly good weather, so we sat outside on the sidewalk seating along 24th Street.  I did not have much time inside the restaurant, but it is fairly large, and the ambiance seems similar to that of the its Lower East Side sibling.  The outdoor seating, while noisy with Third Avenue traffic, is on a great street corner for people watching; we ran into two separate friends walking down the street during my two hour dinner.  

While Italian small plates restaurants have become nearly as ubiquitous in New York as high-end Italian restaurants, 'inoteca, vino, cucina e liquori bar, as the Gramercy outpost is formally named, has a menu that strays from the cured meats, bruschetta, cheese, and esoteric Italian varietals formula of other restaurants in the same genre.  In addition to those standards, the liquori bar offers an extensive cocktail list, a holdover from the Bar Milano menu.  I have heard that the cocktails are well-made.  However, I am not much of a cocktail drinker, so I stuck to the well-priced and well-chosen wine list, ordering Lachryma Christi ("tears of Christ") del Vesuvio White from Mastroberardino, one of the top producers from the Campania region.  I thoroughly enjoyed this tart wine with a beautiful golden hue and will seek it out for home consumption.

The food menu from 'inoteca also goes beyond the standard Italian small plates menu.  While the menu offers the same panini, fritto, and larger plates as the Rivington Street outpost, it also contains a number of pastas and several spiedini (skewered meats).  Somewhat overwhelmed by the choices, my SE and I chose selections from three areas of the menu: calamari-shaped pasta with mussels in a tomato and saffron broth; a panino with spinach, fontina, mushrooms, and truffle oil; and chickpea fritters with cheese (fontina?) and mint.  All were delicious, going above and beyond our expectations with nuanced flavors and textures in each dish: the mint in the fritters, the meaty mushrooms in the panino, and the saffron in the mussels.  Our favorite plate was the pasta with mussels, which proved to be the perfect meal for sitting outside on a warm spring day.  Despite 'inoteca's small plates concept and fairly low priced menu, with the $16 pasta being $5 more expensive than the other dishes we ordered, the portion sizes were quite large, with three being more than enough to feed the two of us.  All too often in New York restaurants, a small plate dish consists of two minuscule bite-size portions, so it was nice to eat at a small plates restaurant that does not also offer a small value.

I should note that the service as 'inoteca is also very friendly.  Despite the restaurant being very crowded, our sever was patient and helped us navigate the borderline pretentious all-Italian menu (a short and incomplete glossary is provided with the menu).  Each of our plates arrived in separate, well-timed intervals.  

It took me years to finally make it to 'inoteca, and I went only after a more convenient location to my apartment opened.  While the food did not amaze me to the point of questioning why I never ventured to the Lower East Side 'inoteca, it was certainly a good enough value for me to hope to return to the Gramercy location soon.  

'inoteca, vino, cucina e liquori bar

323 Third Ave. (at 24th St.)

New York, NY 10010

212.683.3035

A Letdown at Craft

I can't help but compare my recent meal at Craft to my recent meal at Gramercy Tavern. Both restaurants are at the same price point and operate along the same similar premise, expertly sourced ingredients prepared simply. It is no wonder that they are so similar; after all, before Tom Colicchio, no longer chef but still owner of Craft, made a name for himself on Top Chef, he was making a name for himself as executive chef at Gramercy Tavern.

Unfortunately, my meals at each restaurant were not so similar. My dinner at Gramercy Tavern was perfect in nearly every aspect, from service, to ambiance, to the food itself. Craft, on the other hand, missed on both service and, more importantly, execution. The service my dining companion and I had at Craft was not bad--our server was perfectly amicable and did nothing wrong-- but did not make me feel that the restaurant really appreciated or cared that I was dining there as I felt at Gramercy Tavern. Again, I was spoiled by my experience at Gramercy Tavern, but in this economic climate and at the price point of both restaurants, I think they should both go out of their way to make the diner feel welcome. I will note that the dining room at Craft was not entirely full on a Friday night, so it is not as if the recession should not be a worry to the restaurant.

Quibbles about the service aside, Craft's biggest fault was in execution. My dining companion ordered several of our server's recommendations: arugula & lemon salad, a roasted octopus special, roasted monkfish, and roasted Berkshire rack of pork. Aside from the monkfish, which was superb, something was missing from every dish. Both the octopus and arugula salad were lacking in flavor. While I understand and respect the idea that well-sourced ingredients require little extra flavor (see Gramercy Tavern), both of these dishes had a flavorful sauce or dressing, but there was so little of the sauce or dressing that it left both my dining companion and I wanting more. The rack of pork was a disappointment on another level; the flavors of the meat and smoky sauce (my apologies for recalling so few details of my dishes) were absolutely wonderful, and the pork was one of the best pieces of pork I have ever tasted. However, the meat was cold in the center. It was also slightly undercooked for my tastes, and I usually enjoy pork rarer than most people. As I consumed each dish, I thought of how Gramercy Tavern would have prepared the same dishes; based on the perfect execution of my meal there, I could assume that Gramercy Tavern would have done much better.

While my meal at Craft was by no means bad, it was certainly disappointing. At this price point and with enough NYC restaurants operating on similar concepts as Craft, I do not see myself returning. Nonetheless, my man-crush on Tom Collicchio is as strong as ever.